Sensory Integration Activities:
Sensory Integration/Occupational Therapy
What is
occupational therapy and how can it help?
Pediatric
occupational therapy is skilled treatment aimed at maximizing the
abilities of infants
and children to achieve self-help, play and learning skills appropriate
for
their age. Using
purposeful activities,
including the tasks of daily life, it promotes in children the greatest
possible degree of functional independence. A person of any age who is
dealing
with the effects of disease, injury, birth defects, disability or
developmental
problems can benefit from treatment, but it is especially helpful for
children when
combined with an early diagnosis.
Promoting
and Improving
- Oral-motor development
and eating skills
- Age appropriate mobility/motor
skills
- Ability to interact with the environment
- Developmental skills and play behaviors
- Caregivers about development, play, physical handling of the infant or child, and home programs
Direct
Services:
When
direct treatment is indicated, Sensory Systems Clinic professionals
provide
complete occupational therapy programs. Therapists, using
age-appropriate
activities, focus on sensory, motor, postural, cognitive
visual/perceptual and
social/emotional development.
Direct Treatment May Include:
- Child directed treatment with a large variety of suspended equipment, climbing equipment and motor activities
- Facilitation of developmental skills for functional tasks
- Acquisition of hand
skills for fine motor tasks
- Promotion of oral motor
development and eating skills
- Management of body
position for self care and daily activities
- Development of
self-concept and self-esteem
- Development of
perceptual motor skills
- Improvement of spatial
and body perception
- Improvement of ability
to concentrate and organize self
- Organization and sequencing of functional tasks.
